20 Years My Ass - Oneshot
by FaxFiction
Summary: Truth is, I don't know why I came here. It was a stupid idea. He said twenty years, the bastard, and it's only been four. I only made it four piddly years trying (and sucking at it, let's be honest) to figure out how to make my heart feel whole when the idiot ripped out half of it. With dirty fingers. Using a kitchen spoon and a corkscrew. FAX-filled oneshot


**I had no idea finishing LYS would feel so..._empty._ It's like my brain went into overdrive and now I've got a solid handful of ideas for future MR stories, one with a couple of chapters that's in-progress already. And then this idea came out of nowhere and ended up written first.**

**I know the "Max meets Fang on the cliff" stories are a dime a dozen, but I'm hoping I've written something that still feels new. This is my first time writing in Max's voice, too, which I thought would be challenging but actually, I really enjoyed it. And I've learned by now that if I enjoy writing it, you'll probably enjoy reading it. **

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><p>If you asked me why, I'd tell you I wasn't allowed to say. Official top secret CSM business, you know? If you asked again, and pointed out that I quit the CSM two years ago <em>and <em>it was the anniversary of a certain unnamed someone's departure, I'd probably punch you in the face, do a vertical take-off, and hightail it outta there in super speed mode.

Just ask Iggy.

Truth is, I don't know why I came here. It was a stupid idea. He said twenty years, the bastard, and it's only been four. I only made it four piddly years trying (and sucking at it, let's be honest) to figure out how to make my heart feel whole when the idiot ripped out half of it. With dirty fingers. Using a kitchen spoon and a corkscrew.

I'm tired of hurting. And I'm tired of waiting. Who waits 20 years for a relationship, seriously? So I made up some lame excuse about ensuring our safety, punched Iggy for being obnoxiously perceptive, and admitted that I'm a sorry sap who can't get over her ex-boyfriend by flying off to this godforsaken cliff.

_The _cliff.

The 'meet-me-in-20-years' cliff.

I thought I'd find...I don't know. Nothing, maybe. Dust. Memories. I just wanted a pity party, and then, I promised myself, I was gonna move on. I was gonna do it. Shed my last few tears and then maybe shred the letter that I'd cried over an embarrassing number of times and scatter it to the wind or something stupidly sentimental like that. Twenty years my ass. He might as well have just said 'never' and spared me the extra knife to the heart. It was the least he could do.

Anyway, I showed up. And, whoa oh, I did _not_ find nothing.

Far from it.

My first clue was the stoop. The fact that the little cave actually _had_ one, conspicuously free from dirt and pebbles, was pretty damning.

The second clue was the freaking private eye setup once you stepped inside the red rock cave. An entire wall was plastered with newspaper clippings and photographs and articles. Literally every mention of the Flock since we officially brought down ITEX a year after _he_ skipped town.

A little further in, there was a thin cork-board with a hand-painted map and red pushpins everywhere holding Post-Its with dates and addresses. Everywhere I led the Flock in the year after the fall of ITEX. The year I worked for the CSM before I couldn't anymore and we faded into a low-key life. My brain was screaming at me that this was creepy as hell but I couldn't stop the sick little leap of my heart at the thought that _he_ did this, it had to be him. He knew where I was.

But he still stayed away.

Everything went annoyingly blurry and I rubbed furiously at the traitorous tears brimming over my eyelids. It was making my nose run. I pulled in a shaky breath and sat down heavily in front of this…this _shrine_ to the Flock and right onto a ratty sleeping bag.

I had about point-two seconds to wonder why the _hell_ there was a _sleeping bag_ in front of the creepy-slash-romantic Max Shrine before there was a clatter of pebbles and a whispered, 'oh my god.' And this, my friends, is where my well-honed, 'shoot first, ask questions later' hair trigger training comes in handy. The sucker didn't know what hit 'im.

Drop kick, battle cry-slash-grunt, upper-cut punch to the jaw, hold him down with the knees and grab the...the hair. The over-long, silky, _black_ hair.

I paused and just about choked on my own tongue, "Fang?"

He craned his neck to spit blood and coughed twice before rasping, "Sternum, you're on my sternum."

And I lost it. I just snapped. I ground my knee into his chest and bent right down in his face and let out this crazy, wild, flames-shooting-from-my-eyes scream. He barely had time to blink before I punched him right in the nose. There was a nasty crack, a hissed expletive, and his hands flew up to his face. I spent a few seconds trying to land another punch, but his dumb arms were in the way and my vision went blurry again anyway so I gave up. Just sat on him and sobbed, like some heart-sick baby.

I couldn't catch my breath. My throat closed up, I wheezed like an asthmatic coal miner, and my body started to curl in on itself as my heart tried to bleed to death. There was nothing in me to respond when sinewy arms wrapped around me and he rocked upright with a grunt. He crossed his legs under us and stuck his bloodied nose in my hair, slurring, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again until I couldn't stand it anymore.

Inside my head, it was like a schizophrenic's Christmas party. On the one hand, this was Fang, _my Fang,_ here and holding me like I'd dreamed about so pathetically almost every night since he left. My lips trembled with sobs and I wanted him to kiss the living daylights out of me, bloody mouth and all. On the other hand, he left me with nothing but a crummy letter and a hollow invitation to a 20-year reunion. He went off to do God-knows-what with a replacement family while compiling a sick memorial to his _real_ Flock. I wanted to hate him with every fiber of my being.

I _wanted_ to.

But I couldn't.

Still, I needed to keep it together. Heartbreak is pain, and pain is just a message. Deal with the cause first, _then_ deal with the pain. I fought to suck in a solid breath and shoved his shoulders, wriggling out of his grip and scooting back against the far wall of the cave.

That was the first time I looked, _really_ looked at him. We were nineteen now, give or take, so I guess we kinda of looked like we were in our young twenties. His hair was close-cropped at the ears and gelled to faux-messy perfection, his tan chin was unshaven, and his green ironic tee and dark-wash skinny jeans combo screamed hipster-wannabe. Confirmed by the lens-free black plastic frames that had flown across the cave and onto his corduroy satchel when I punched him the first time.

He opened his mouth to speak and I snapped, "No!" I gave him the most hateful glare I could manage. "You don't get to say _anything._" We sat there for what felt like an hour, just breathing the same air. It was excruciating, but it was addictive. I couldn't have left if I'd wanted to.

He held my furious stare, I'll give him that. He was sniffling every two seconds and wiping his bloody nose on his forearm, and he kinda looked like he might hurl, but he kept eye contact.

When it got to where I couldn't take it anymore, I cleared my throat and spat at him, "You look like shit."

His nostrils flared and he mumbled through bloody teeth, "Prolly deserve it."

I just snorted, "Yeah, ya do." And as an afterthought, "And what the hell are you wearing?" He didn't reply. I looked around the cave, everywhere but him, and then zoned in on the softly ribbed messenger bag full of books and his laptop, "What the hell is this?"

"School stuff."

"Oh yeah?" I scoffed. He just kept _looking_ at me.

"Yeah. It's something to do."

"Something to do?" He just wanted to pass the time. Like a freaking Sunday walk in the park while I died a little inside every day.

"Max, I just-"

"Shut UP!" My shriek echoed off the walls of the cave and my throat threatened to close again. I massaged my temple with my thumbs and fought to will the tears back inside my eyes. I'd been trying to choke them off for years and there were too many of them for me to hold off anymore. Resigned, I threw my head back against the wall with my eyes pinched shut and the stupid tears making tracks down my face.

"I hate you, you know," I choked out from behind the dark safety of closed eyes. If I kept them closed, he couldn't see that I didn't mean it. I wrapped my arms around my knees and fought to keep my chin from wobbling. "I hate that you left me when you promised you wouldn't. I hate that you stayed gone. I hate that you asked me to wait twenty _fucking_ years." I dredged up all the pain I could stand and opened my eyes to glare at him, to show him how much he hurt me. "And I _hate_ how I've missed you so bad that the nightmares _still_ make me vomit, and then I wake up and remember that it's my reality. I have to smile for the kids no matter how dead I feel. All over an _ex-boyfriend_."

"We're more than that," he whispered. Stoic as ever, he watched me snivel quietly from his seat on the cave floor. Just when I was about ready to throw one last punch and just leave the jerk-wad behind, he went and stuck his foot in it, "You're not the only one with nightmares."

I choked out a laugh, "What, you want me to feel sorry for you? Boo hoo, you left us behind and it made you sad, poor baybee."

His eyebrows drew together in a sad frown and I almost, almost did feel sorry for him. Just for a second. Until I remembered how he ran off with my clone and left me behind without a second thought.

"Can I explain?"

I couldn't stop the monster eye roll, but I also knew I wasn't ready to make myself leave. Not when I finally had him in front of me. "This oughtta be good."

He spat blood one more time and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He leaned back against the rocky wall and stared out the entrance towards the fading daylight. "I looked for you. I've _been_ looking for you. But you're hard to find."

"Bullshit."

He glanced at me reproachfully and continued, "I fought ITEX with my, uh, my gang for that first year. You know. With Ratchett and Star and everyone," he paused. "With Maya," he acknowledged. "I thought that if your flock and mine went against them at the same time, they'd fall sooner.

"And they did, I guess. One year. One measly year and it was over. Everyone left, and it was just me, and I realized," he gulped, voice thick with emotion, and turned to me, "I realized what an idiot I was. For asking you to wait twenty years."

I scoffed, "It took you a _whole year_ to realize that?"

He scrubbed his hand over his face and winced when he brushed his nose. He took a second to press his fingers on either side and set it with a quiet click. The next part of his confession came through pinched nostrils and his head titled back. "I was ready to come back, groveling on hands and knees. Beg you to take me back, or even just let me be part of the Flock again. I started tracking you," he nodded towards the push-pin map, "but you were always one step ahead. I'd get there and hear how you saved the day last week. Yesterday. Just hours before.

"And then you vanished, like you'd never existed-"

"Sounds familiar," I mumbled angrily, but he continued anyway.

"-and I could barely hold it together."

He lifted his head, glanced at his bloodied fingers, and locked eyes with mine again. "I needed you then. I need you now. It killed me that I was too stupid to realize that before I let you go."

"Let me go?" my pitiful whisper cracked through my throat, thick with tears. They hadn't stopped, the little traitors. "Let me go?" I tried again, a little louder this time, and managed a sarcastic laugh. "You didn't _let me go._ You drove the knife into my heart and twisted, _Fang,_ and left a broken family and turd-face Dylan to pick up the pieces."

Fang's eyes locked with mine and this time there was a sliver of hope. "Turd-face Dylan?" the corner of his lips twitched into the tiniest smirk and if I could feel my legs I would have punched him again in a heartbeat. Right in his freshly-set nose.

"Yeah, turd-face Dylan," I simmered. I could feel my anger coming back, so much easier to handle than heartbreak, and I relished it. "You left that love-sick, genetically predisposed, 18-month old, nubile _ignoramus_ to pick up the pieces that _you_ left behind. And he was so sincere that I let the amateur try. But it was never good enough, Fang, because he wasn't _you_, and apparently I'm a sorry excuse for a girl who can't even get over her boyfriend after FOUR YEARS!"

I was practically screaming at him by the end. I expected more contrite apologies, more of the weak man who was too much of a coward to even say goodbye to my face. Some good old-fashioned groveling, maybe. But he surged to his feet and pointed wildly at the clipping-covered walls and screamed right back.

"You think you're the only one who hurt, Max? Do you _see_ what I had to do to cope? Did you see that I have every _fucking_ mention of you on display so that I can't forget? I've been living in a fuckin' _cave_ just so I don't miss any chance that you might come here early," he spat and waved his hand in my general area. "Earlier than twenty fucking years, because I was a foolish twit at fifteen and I was scared, Max, scared I was going to have to pay for that thoughtless ultimatum for the rest of my life!"

He stopped abruptly to pinch his nose shut, but a fresh wave of blood seeped out between his fingers. I wanted so badly to go to him, to start to fix the damage that I'd done, but he hadn't set me free yet. He slid back down the wall of the cave and leaned his head back with eyes drawn shut and lips parted. When he spoke again, it was muffled by the blood in his nose, "I'm terrified that I've ruined everything. Everything I ever really cared about." His voice trembled, "I'm terrified that I ruined me and you."

And there it was. Permission to crawl awkwardly towards him on my hands and knees. We weren't done hashing this out, not even close, but I was done keeping myself away from him because it hurt too damn much.

I pulled my pity party tissue stash out of my back pocket and folded one so I could press it to his face. He jerked, not expecting me to touch him I guess, but let me peel his blood-stickied fingers away and replace them with mine. I couldn't dam up my quivering tears, but I could do _this._

We sat like that, me holding a thin tissue to his swelling nose, for I don't even know how long. I didn't know what to say next. I guess he didn't, either. After several long minutes and a few false starts, his hand found mine and secured me with a death grip. Words were lost on us but his message was clear: 'I won't let you go.'

I didn't pull away.

In fact, my fingers slipped in between his, as easy as pie, like I'd never stopped holding his hand.

His thumb bumped over my knuckles repetitively. It was kind of annoying, but I didn't want him to stop. His eyes cracked open from behind the tissue in my hand and he spoke gruffly, "I tried everything I could think of to find you. Followed the news, contacted the CSM for a schedule, tried to email your mom. But then you just...vanished. I lost you." His face crumpled in pain for a millisecond before his passive shield was back in place and he eyed me questioningly.

"I quit," I spat out and yanked my hand from his to swipe the back across my nose. "I couldn't do it anymore. The speaking events, the research and rescue missions, even the damn bookwork – it all reminded me of...of..." I shuddered and leaned my head against the wall to whisper, "Then they wanted us to do the airshows again."

"I remember," his whisper cracked and stuck in his throat. "I saw the press release. I thought that would be it, that I'd finally catch up with you."

I just about gagged on my next breath. "I couldn't do it. I always did them with you. You and me, painting the sky, and then they wanted me to do it without you, and I couldn't make myself do it." My voice cracked as my throat closed up and I choked back a sob. I pressed a trembling hand to my eyes and gave myself three seconds before I sucked it in again and looked into the eyes of the man who broke my family and my heart. "You locked my heart in a box and you ran away with the key and I didn't even know if you were alive!"

I just couldn't lay off. Fang, to his credit, just sat there and took it. Even if I was pressing harder against his bleeding nose than I should have been.

"You broke my heart, Fang! You told me you loved me in a stinkin' _letter_ and you _left_!" I gave up on holding his nose at that point and started shoving his shoulders to punctuate my points. "You left _me,_ you left your _family,_ and you _left_ pain!" Everything escalated until I was screaming again. My throat was going to be raw in the morning, but I couldn't have cared less. "I've known you since we were _six! _You were my longest friend, and my best friend, and my co-captain...Fang, I let you be my rock! And then you _left,_ and you might as well have _died,_ and everything was _terrible, _and you're the_ only one _who could have_ fixed it! And you were gone!"_

It felt like my lungs seized up just then because this massive sob ripped through me and then I was hyperventilating through my snotty, sobby tears. Fang's rough hand caught mine again and he shifted around to face me. He tugged me toward him gently and I basically fell like a sack of potatoes into his arms, weeping like a colicky infant and sniffling hard against his shoulder. It was very un-Max-ish, but you know what? Screw that. Fang had been dead, for all intents and purposes, and now he was here, right here in front of me and holding me and rubbing soothing circles just beneath my wings. If you thought I was going to let him go, you thought wrong.

I meant to keep going with the whole 'make sure he knows what a douche he is' train of conversation on principle, but just then my tongue decided to go rogue. "D-don't l-luh-luh-leave," I croaked out from the crook of his shoulder between soul-wracking sobs.

"Never never never. Never again, Max."

And that, ladies and gents, was what finally did me in. I fought for one disappointingly ragged gulp of air and wrapped my arms around him, locking him in a death grip with hands clasped firmly behind his back. I was not going to let the bonehead go, even if he wanted me to.

Thank God he didn't want me to.

He pulled me tight against him, wrapping me up in all six limbs, and ground his chin against my shoulder as he peppered kisses all over my hair. And then he muttered the thing that sealed the deal. The words that had initially changed the pain of his disappearing act from excruciating to downright cruel. The words that I'd only ever seen written in his scrawling chicken scratch.

"I love you, Max."

I didn't even have time to think about it. Gut response, go.

"I love you, too."

There it was. The first time we said those three over-used, hyper-clichéd, water-for-my-freaking-soul words out loud. I clung to him like my life depended on it (maybe it did) and counted to ten in my head, trying to get my sobbing under control.

Slowly, I became aware of more than my tears and the cloistering heat of being pressed against Fang. I could feel the cool rock floor under the denim on my knees. I realized that I couldn't breathe through my nose, like, at all. The walls were glowing burnt orange as the sun went down and the rational part of my brain reminded me that the kids were expecting me home, but that seemed kind of ridiculous because right here, in Fang's arms, felt more like _home_ than anything else in the last four years.

He pressed his cool thumb to my cheek and pulled back to search my puffy, bloodshot eyes. Gone was the carefully controlled, coolly collected version of Fang. His brows were knit and his lips were drawn and every part of him was in pain, in love, just _desperate_. He opened his mouth to speak with a soft smack from his dry, bloody lips and spoke hoarsely, "I need to kiss you. Can...can I kiss you?"

I burst into renewed sobs and he looked absolutely crushed for a moment, but then I grabbed his face and smashed my mouth to his.

And we kissed. Everything around us could have melted away like some trippy Dali dreamscape and I don't think we would have noticed. The initial salty tang of blood and tears quickly gave way to the warm, vaguely spicy, indescribably calming flavor of _Fang_. Clean and masculine, with soft lips and scratchy cheeks. Four years is a long time, and where our kisses used to be tentative and sweet, now they screamed of joy and regret, love and loss.

These were infinitely better.

The pain that had been eating me alive started to fade without so much as a final goodbye, fixed insanely easily by the man who ushered it in, and so help me, I let him. It had been too long. And now he was back, literally kissing my tears away, and I could finally breathe for the first time in ages. Heavily. Through Fang's parted lips.

Seconds dragged on into minutes and I didn't want to stop. Couldn't stop. Maybe he couldn't, either. But steamy reunion kisses apparently lead to an elevated heart rate, and that does _wonders_ for nosebleeds. Fang made an admirable attempt to take my lips with him when he pulled away to tilt his head back. His hand never left mine, even when he side-eyed me and smirked, "You're a vampire."

"Yeah, and who's the genius who wanted to suck face while his brains dripped out his nose, huh?" I dug my last tissue out of my back pocket and spit in it to clean up my face a little.

"Sitting with the genius who induced in the crimson tide in the first place."

"Deserved," I reminded him.

"Duly noted." He eyed me again, cautiously, and gave my fingers a little tug. "You won't leave?"

"I don't think I could, even if I wanted to."

He paused, carefully rearranging his features into the emotionally-detached calm I remembered so well. "Do you want to?"

I felt my face contort into a grimace for a second before I caught it and stared at him earnestly. I shook my head furiously and croaked, "No." Apparently just the _thought_ of separating from Fang was too much for me. Sap.

His eyes fell closed. Satisfied, he let out a breath of relief and tugged against my fingers again. I hooked my ankle around his and let his fingers drop so I could root through my little backpack with two hands. The sun had gone down (presumably while I was busy sucking face) and I needed to take care of business.

I felt Fang watching me warily so I shook my head and drew my cell phone out of the pack. "S'dark. I need to call Iggy before he has a conniption fit." I chewed on the inside of my cheek while the phone rang and absently reached for Fang's hand again, which he offered gladly. Clearly we weren't going to be able to stop touching for a while.

"Y'ello?"

"Hey Ig. Listen, I..." I glanced at Fang and knew I had to stay until I could take him with me. "I'm not gonna come home tonight."

There was a static pause and a heavy sigh. "Oookay? What happened to the 'quick scout'?"

I cringed. This was _not_ a conversation I wanted over the phone, but they had to know where I was. I frowned and spat out, "YouwererightI'matthecave."

"Uh, what was that? Could you say that again, please? I don't think I heard you."

I grumbled and raised my voice, "You were right. About where I was going." I pulled in a shuddering breath and forced out, "He's here."

The pause on the line was deafening. Coulda heard a pin drop. When Iggy spoke again, his harsh words shook, "I hope you taught that fucker a lesson about how you don't leave your family."

I laughed dryly and rolled my eyes, "He's worse off than you, that's for sure."

"Better be."

"I broke his nose." I spared a glance for Fang and squeezed his hand reassuringly. He smiled softly and mouthed, 'deserved,' but otherwise stayed still.

Iggy's laugh barked coldly, "You tell the asshole there's more where that came from if he wants back in."

"Iggy!" I hissed and turned away from Fang like he wouldn't be able to hear me. As if. Bird kid hearing equals instant eavesdropping on all nearby phone calls. "Let me handle this!"

I heard a handful of harsh breaths before Iggy spoke again, "I know you never stopped hoping he'd come home. And I watched you hurt in new and exciting ways every day since he left. All of us did. So, sorry, but I don't trust you to handle this. Not the way I think you should."

I rolled my eyes again, very over this discussion. "Whatever, Igs. Right now, it's between me and Fang. You can hash out _your_ butt-hurt abandonment issues when I drag his sorry ass back home. Capiche?"

He growled and I heard the hollow thud of his head hitting the wall. He sounded utterly defeated, "Just...just don't let him hurt you again. Okay? I can't handle watching you go through that again. Neither can the kids."

"I'd murder him."

Iggy chuckled dryly. "We'd get to him first. Let him know there's more than a broken nose waiting for him if he ever pulls an asinine stunt like that again."

I looked at Fang again, sitting upright and balling up the bloody tissue to toss it with the others, pretending he _couldn't_ hear every word. "Yup. Will do, Igs. I'll call you when I have an ETA, 'kay? Say goodnight to the kids for me?"

"Sure thing, Max. Come home soon. Fly safe."

"Yup. Later."

I let the cell drop on top of the backpack and looked to Fang. His nose was deep purple and shiny with swelling and I finally started to feel a little bad about it. "What now?" I challenged.

He grunted and rocked onto his heels to stand. "We'll clean up better at the lake." He kicked the used tissues to the side and offered me a hand up.

"Okay, but after that?" I toed his messenger bag with his two-ton textbooks.

He renewed his grasp on my hand, "I'll go wherever you go. I can take my classes online." He drew me closer and pressed his lips to my temple, "I'm not leaving you, Max. I mean it."

"You'd better."

He winced, running his ruddy hand through his hair, and whispered, "I think I'd die if I lost you again."

I leaned back to search his eyes, looking for a lie, for any hint of insincerity, but there was nothing. Nothing but surety and longing.

_Longing for me,_ whispered the butterflies in my stomach. I turned to lead him towards the mouth of the cave and down to the lake below with my thoughts skipping a mile a minute. I had Fang's hand in mine. He had never stopped loving me, and never stopped looking for me. He even copped to the cowardice of his letter. Sure, learning to trust him again would take some serious work on his part, but that couldn't stop the all-encompassing feeling of _being home_ that I felt the minute I touched him.

Because that's just it. Fang _is_ my 'home.' And with him, I can take on the world.


End file.
